


Murderer

by TheMidnightOwl



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Depressing, Gen, Hurt No Comfort, Mild Gore, Minor Violence, One Shot, Pining Sherlock, no seriously i cried while writing it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-07-25
Updated: 2014-07-25
Packaged: 2018-02-10 07:40:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,022
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2016621
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheMidnightOwl/pseuds/TheMidnightOwl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Inspired by this text post I saw on Tumblr from Tumblr user willietheplaidjacket: "Imagine after he shoots Magnussen, Sherlock is anxiously washing his hands and face, then looks up at the mirror in front of him and all he can see surrounding his reflection is the word ‘murderer.'"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Murderer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Willie_The_Plaid_Jacket](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Willie_The_Plaid_Jacket/gifts).



> I'm so sorry about this.

_“Regretfully, Lady Smallwood, my brother is a murderer.”_

Forty-eight hours since the Magnussen incident.  Mycroft is allowing him to remain at home for his final days in London.  Baker Street, 221B, London, England, with John Watson.  John.  Doctor John Watson, who has killed for him, and for whom he has now returned that gruesome favor.  Interesting that a single person has become more of a home to him than the building in which he sleeps, eats, thinks, uses his computer, and does all of those things that make a place a home.  No, it is a complicated army doctor, a man that takes life as easily and willingly as he gives it, a man that is as full of contradictions as he himself is, that has become home for Sherlock Holmes.  And now that’s all going to be taken away.  Because Sherlock Holmes let himself get sentimental.  Such a terribly fatal mistake.  One that he normally uses against the people that he hunts, and now it has doomed him as well. 

Apparently, John’s fondness of poetry has also gotten to him.

Murder has never bothered Sherlock.  He makes a living off of murderers.  They provide the most fascinating cases, the most interesting and stimulating puzzles.  His life would be infinitely boring without man’s desire to brutally (and sometimes savagely) injure his fellow man.  Murder excites Sherlock.  Not in the way Sally Donovan assumes it does; he gains no sexual satisfaction from the idea of murder or from corpses.  Murder simply fascinates him, provides him with ample stimulation to prevent his brain from tearing itself apart.  People have often times accused him of being a murderer, and it never bothered him.  In fact it only made his smile more smug when he proved them wrong and found the real culprit.

But now, in his home in Baker Street, as he scrubs his hands clean of blood and gunpowder, murder is no longer an exciting thought.  _It’s no longer abstract,_ he reasons, _it’s no longer something that does not directly affect me.  I am no longer separated from the murderer or the deceased.  This time it’s my victim, this time it really is me._   He tries to will the voices away, but his brain has never been someone with which he could effectively argue.  _This time, they’re right._

In an attempt to stop thinking, he splashes his face with cold water.  Twice.  When he looks up, though, the little nagging sensation has returned, the chill only a temporary respite from its stinging bite.  MURDERER it spells out, all around his head in floating sans-serif font.  The evidence is all there: tired, bloodshot eyes but no elevated heart rate to suggest recent physical exertion, pallid, colorless skin, and heavy, glossy eyes.  All signs of someone who has very recently committed a crime that they regret.  _Murderer._

Does he regret it, though?  Does the punishment outweigh the crime?  He doesn’t need to enter his mind palace to answer that question.  No, he doesn’t regret it.  Because John Watson is safe.  Saved.  John is okay, and Magnussen can never hurt him or those close to him again.  John is free to live the life he wants with Mary, and Sherlock - well, Sherlock won’t be around to tamper with it any longer.  John can go back to the life he had built for himself before Sherlock’s return. 

 _You know, it is just possible that you won’t be welcome,_ Mycroft had warned him before he gracelessly informed John of his survival.  Because of course Mycroft had known about Mary; he’d been keeping an eye on John, after all.  And being the man that he was, Mycroft had even been aware of Mary’s less than ideal past, but did not pry out of respect for the couple’s privacy, as Sherlock had done.  The only fact that really angered Sherlock out of the whole situation was that Mycroft had not seen fit to warn Sherlock of her past so he could be better prepared to protect John.  Outwardly she seemed so unimposing that the simple fact of her being a liar did not seem to need further investigation; after all, everyone told lies.  Had he been aware of how colossal her lies were and how detrimental they would eventually be to John’s safety, well, maybe he would have intervened sooner.

He growls under his breath.  _Sentiment._ It makes little difference now.  John is safe.  Mary is safe.  Their baby is safe.  Magnussen is dead at Sherlock’s hand.  Sherlock has personally ensured their safety at the cost of his own.  Nothing he is a stranger to.  It was worth it.  Everything is fine.  It’s all fine.  John is safe. 

“It’s all fine,” He whispers to his reflection, pretending to anyone who might hear - himself included - that the tear running down his cheek was just another droplet of water. 

He does not bother to dry his face, only crosses from the bathroom into the bedroom.  There is no light outside the window, his room illuminated by the single lamp in the corner, which he hovers by, hesitating before turning it off in favor of studying his shaking hand.

His hands are unsteady from lack of sleep, having not even attempted it since the night immediately following Magnussen’s murder.  That night he had dreamt the scene over and over again with brutally accurate recall and high-definition clarity.  The only detail that had changed was John’s expression.  For it was not fear that he saw on John’s face in the dream, but disgust and contempt.  Upon waking, he had known that it was a dream and John had not looked at him like that, but the image had burned itself into his fusiform gyrus, and he could not delete the false memory from his consciousness no matter his knowledge that it was not real. 

Nonetheless, nearly forty-eight hours without sleep is taking its toll on him, especially after his rigorous activities during the days leading up to the incident at Appledore.  With shaking limbs only partially due to his exhaustion, Sherlock turns out the lights and succumbs to rest, hoping to a God he does not believe in that he will sleep a dreamless sleep. 

 

_Come and play._  
 _Bart’s Hospital rooftop._  
  
 _Thirteen possible scenes await me once I step outside this door.  Myrcoft will be waiting for my word.  Moriarty will lose._

_“Then how did I break in to the bank, to the tower, to the prison, daylight robbery!  All it takes is a few willing participants!”_

_Confession procured.  He thinks he’s winning.  Let him keep thinking he’s winning._

_“Now can we finish the game.”  Yes of course, my suicide.  He’s predictable but don’t show it.  Too early to send a text, need confirmation of his escape plan._

_“You machine.”  Doesn’t understand that I’m trying to protect him.  Easier if he thinks I’m unaffected anyway.  Not now John, I need to think._

_The sun is so bright.  Unusual for London.  The average amount of sunshine in London in January is only three hours daily.  None of this light is visible in Moriarty’s eyes.  They still appear black.  Humans do not naturally possess black eyes so his are obviously dark brown, to the point of his pupils being unidentifiable from his iris muscle - even, apparently, in direct sunlight._

_Focus on the game._

_“I am you, remember?  Prepared to do anything, prepared to burn, prepared to do what ordinary people won’t do.  You want me to shake hands with you in hell?  I shall not disappoint you.”  The sunlight has finally made his pupils distinct from his irises.  The light assists me in reading him.  He’s trying to deny it - pupils are more dilated than they should be given the severity of the light.  Good.  Let his denial of the parallel be his downfall if he’ll let it.  Either way he does not have the advantage he thinks he does.  I acknowledge that had I taken a different path I could have ended up the same as this man.  But the difference between us is that there is no blood on my hands._

_“I may be on the side of the angels, but don’t think for one second that I am one of them.”  Never a killer, never a monster.  But never a hero.  Never the hero John Watson believes me to be, never the villain Moriarty thinks I should be.  I believe in facts, and the facts say that violence and death exist.  As do peace and saviors.  Like John.  John saves people.  He’s killed them too.  He’s the best kind of enigma, and he’s mine._

_Focus on the game._

_“You’re me.”_

_Unexpected turn of events._

_“Thank you, Sherlock Holmes.”_

_Something’s wrong._

_“As long as I’m alive, John Watson will never be safe.  There’s no way out.”_

_Not Moriarty’s voice._

_“It works like this: I know who Mary hurt and killed.  I know where to find people who hate her.  I know where they live, I know their phone numbers.  I could phone them right now, and tear your whole life down, and I will.”_

_Wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong not John never to John he will not hurt John._

_There’s a weight in my pocket: John’s gun.  It’s in my hand.  The bullet’s chambered.  My eyes are focused on his forehead, prematurely wrinkled, neatly cropped and brushed brunet hair being gently teased by the wind.  My target, my choice.  My John.  My finger squeezes the trigger, embraces the unforgiving metal._

_The shot rings out.  Magnussen falls back.  Not Moriarty, Magnussen.  His glasses have fallen off his face, his blood and brains are spilling out onto the patio.  Appledore’s patio.  But we’re still on the roof.  I leap backwards, wasn’t expecting him to kill himself.  Only he hasn’t killed himself.  I’ve killed him.  I turn around in distress._

_John._

_“Oh, Christ Sherlock,” His hands are up in surrender.  He’s cowering away from me.  Scared of me._

Murderer.

 

Sherlock sits up in bed with a scream, body tensing in preparation to defend itself.  There’s no one in the room.  A quick scan of its surroundings has his brain mechanically turning his vision green: no threat detected.  Just a dream.  A dream comprised of true events spliced in to one, but a dream nonetheless.  No threats here.  None but the detective currently trembling in his sheets.

Sherlock opens his jaw to call for John, only to shut it again when the memory slots in to place.  John is at home with his pregnant wife.  221B is Sherlock’s flat, not Sherlock and John’s flat.  221B is not home to John anymore.  Nor is it to Sherlock.  Not without John.

Not without John.

The pads of his feet come in contact with the icy floorboards.  He stands, clothed only in his pajama bottoms; somehow in his sleep he discarded his nightshirt.  Perspiration on his skin suggests to him that his unconscious form must have overheated and disposed of it.  Nightmares cause an increase in internal body temperature, blood pressure, and resting heart rate; overheating makes sense.  Puzzle solved. 

Reason for the nightmare: self explanatory.

He walks in to the sitting room and gently sweeps his Stradivarius in to his arms, caressing the wood like a child as he makes sure it’s in tune.  When the music fills the air, it sings of homes lost, of friends saved, of futures forfeited, of sacrifices worth making, of the only home Sherlock has ever known, of loved ones worth the pain of sentiment.  It cries for hours over the one person worth all of the tears, of all of the floodgates in his mind palace breaking and letting loose all of the emotions he worked so many years to detain, of the singular person who tore them down.  The one person on earth worth suspending logic and knowledge and the biological imperative of self-preservation in order to save.  The one person worth being sent back undercover in Eastern Europe, a trip he will not survive.  The one person on earth worth only having six months left for.  The one person that always draws inspiration to Sherlock’s bow.

His violin sings for John Watson.


End file.
